"You're a miserable, sneaking, treacherous old equine
scoundrel!" cried Jack, shaking his fist violently at Old Blacky.
"You knew you were making us come the wrong road."
Old Blacky answered never a word, but turned, hit the
wagon-tongue a kick, and joined the other horses.
"Well, close down the front and let's talk this thing over,"
said Jack. "In the first place, we are snowed in."
"In the second place," said I, "we may stay snowed in a
week."
"I don't think we're prepared for that," said Ollie, very
solemnly.
"Let's see," went on Jack. "There are two sacks of ground
feed under Ollie's bed. By putting the horses on rather short
rations that ought to last pretty nearly or quite a week. But for
hay we're not so well provided. There's one big bundle under the
wagon, if Blacky hasn't eaten it up. The pony won't need any,
because she knows how to paw down to the dry grass. The others
don't know how to do this, and the hay will last them, after a
fashion, for about three days."
"Perhaps by that time the pony will have taught them how to
paw," I said.
"Wouldn't be surprised," returned Jack. "Perhaps by that time
we'll all be glad to learn from her. We've got flour enough to
last a fortnight, so we needn't be afraid of running out of
water-pancakes at least. You don't grow fat on 'em, but, on the
other hand, there is no gout lurking in a water-pancake as I make
it."
"No, Jack, that's so," I said, feelingly. "We've got enough
bacon for several meals, a can of chicken, and two earls of
beans. Also a loaf of bread and a pound of crackers. Then there's
three cans of fruit, a dozen potatoes, six eggs, a quart of milk,
and half a pound of pressed figs. After that we'll paw with the
pony."
"I wonder if we couldn't get some game?" inquired Ollie.
"Snow-birds, maybe," said Jack. "Or perhaps an owl. I've
heard b'iled owl spoken of."
After all, the prospect was not so bad. Besides, it was so
early in the season that it did not seem at all likely that we
should be snowbound a week. Still, we knew little about the
mountain climate.
We got on our overcoats and went out and gave the horses
their breakfast. Old Blacky was still cross, but Jack contented
himself by calling him a few names. We also got up what wood we
could and piled it against the wagon, for use in case our
kerosene became exhausted, though we decided to cook in the wagon
for the present. The snow was seven or eight inches deep, and
still falling rapidly. After breakfast we took the pony down to a
little open fiat and turned her loose. The old instinct of her
wild days came back to her, and she began to paw away the snow
and gnaw at the scanty grass beneath.
After giving the other horses a little hay we returned to the
wagon, where we stayed most of the day. I'm afraid we were a
little frightened by the prospect. Of course, we knew that if it
came to the worst we could leave the wagon and make our way back
along the trail on foot, but we did not want to do that. But as
for getting the wagon back along the narrow road, now blotted out
by the snow, we knew it would be foolish to attempt it. It was
not very cold in the wagon, and Jack played the banjo, and we
were fairly cheerful. The snow kept coming down all day, and by
night it was a foot deep. The pony came in from the flat as it
began to grow dark, and we gave the horses their supper and left
them in the shelter of the rocks. Then we brushed the snow off
the top of the cover, as we had done several times before, and
went in to spend the evening by the light of the lantern. When
bedtime came, Jack looked up and said:
"The cover doesn't seem to sag down. It must have stopped
snowing."
We looked out, and found that it was so. We could even see
the stars; and, better yet, it did not seem to be growing colder.
We went to bed feeling encouraged.
The next morning the sun peeped in at us through the long
trunks of the pines, and Ollie soon discovered that the wind was
from the south.
"Unless it turns cold again, this will fix the snow," said
Jack.
He was right, and it soon began to thaw. By noon the little
stream in the gulch was a torrent, and before night patches of
bare ground began to appear. We decided not to attempt to leave
camp that day, but the next morning saw us headed back along the
tortuous road. In two hours we were again on the main trail. Just
as we turned in, Eugene Brooks came along, having also been
delayed by the snow, though the fall where he was had not been
nearly so great. 'Gene laughed at us, and told us that we had
been following a trail to some lead mines which had been
abandoned several months before.
[Illustration: Lack of Confidence in Mankind]
Half a mile farther on we came to the Thunder Butte Creek
which we had sought. The water was almost blood-red, which 'Gene
told us came from the gold stamp-mills on its upper course. If
the water had been gray it would have indicated silver-mining.
Just beyond we met the Deadwood Treasure Coach. It was an
ordinary four-horse stage, without passengers, but carrying two
guards, each with a very short double-barrelled shot-gun resting
across his lap. The stage was operated by the express company,
and was bringing out the gold bricks from the mines near
Deadwood.
"I suppose," said Ollie, musingly, "if anybody tried to rob
the coach, those fellows would shoot with their guns?"
"Oh no," replied Jack. "Oh no; they carry those guns to fan
themselves with on hot days." But Ollie did not seem to be misled
by this astonishing information.
As we went on the road grew constantly more mountainous.
Sometimes the trail ran along ledges, and sometimes near roaring
streams and waterfalls, and the great pine-trees were everywhere.
We passed two grizzly old placer-miners working just off the
trail, and stopped and watched them "pan out" a few shovelfuls of
dirt. They were rewarded by two or three specks of gold, and
seemed satisfied. 'Gene told us afterward that one of them was
an old California '49er, who had used the same pan in every
State and Territory of the West.
It was a little after noon when we drove into Deadwood--the
last point outward bound at which the Rattletrap expected to
touch. It was a larger town than Rapid City, and was wedged in a
little gulch between two mountains, with the White Wood Creek
rushing along and threatening to wash away the main street. We
noticed that the only way of reaching many of the houses on the
mountain-side was by climbing long flights of stairs. We drove
on, and camped near a mill on the upper edge of town.
In the afternoon we wandered about town, and, among other
places, visited the many Chinese stores. We also clambered up the
mountain-sides to the two cemeteries, which we could see far
above the town. It seemed to us that on rather too many of the
head-stones, (which were in nearly every case boards, by-the-way)
it was stated that the person whose grave it marked was
"assassinated by" so-and so, giving the name of the assassin; but
these were of the old days, when no doubt there were a good many
folks in Deadwood who left the town just as well off after they
had been assassinated. "Killed by Indians" was also the record on
some of the boards. Ollie was greatly interested in the Chinese
graves, with dishes of rice and chicken on them, and colored
papers covered with curious characters--prayers, I suppose. We
climbed on up to the White Rocks, almost at the top of the
highest peak overlooking Deadwood, and had a good view of the
town and gulch below, and of the great Bear Butte standing out
alone and bold miles to the east. We were tired, and glad to go
to bed as soon as we got back to the wagon.
The next day we decided to visit Lead City (pronounced not
like the metal, but like the verb to lead). Here were most of the
big gold mines, including the great Homestake Mine. It was only
two or three miles, and we drove over early. It was a strange
town, perched on the side of a mountain, and consisted of small
openings in the ground, which were the mines, and immense
shed-like buildings, which contained the ore-reducing works. The
noise of the stamp-mills filled the whole town, and seemed to
drown out and cover up everything else. We soon found that there
was no hope of our getting into the mines.
"They'd think you were spies for the other mines, or
something of that sort," said a man to us. "Nobody can get down.
Nobody knows where they are digging, and they don't mean that
anybody shall. They may be digging under their own property
exclusively, and they may not. For all I know, they may be taking
gold that belongs to me a thousand feet, more or less, under my
back yard."
"If I had a back yard here," said Jack, after we had passed
on, "I'd put my ear to the ground once in a while and listen, and
if I heard anybody burrowing under it I'd--well--I'd yell scat at
'em."
We found no difficulty in getting in the stamp-mills, and a
man kindly told us much about them.
"The Homestake Mills make up the largest gold-reducing plant
in the world," said the man. "Where do you suppose the largest
single stamp-mill in the world is?" We guessed California.
"No," he said; "it's in Alaska--the Treadwell Mill."
We decided that the stamp-mills were the noisiest place we
were ever in. There were hundreds of great steel bars, three or
four inches in diameter and a dozen feet long, pounding up and
down at the same time on the ore and reducing it to powder. It
was mixed with water, and ran away as thin red mud, the gold
being caught by quicksilver. The openings of the shafts and
tunnels were in or near the mills, and there were the smallest
cars and locomotives which we had ever seen going about
everywhere on narrow tracks, carrying the ore. Ollie walked up to
one of the locomotives and looked down at it, and said:
"Why, it seems just like a Shetland-pony colt. I believe I
could almost lift it."
The engineer sat on a little seat on the back end, and seemed
bigger than his engine. As we looked at them we constantly
expected to see them tip up in front from the weight of the
engineer. There was also a larger railroad, though still a narrow
gauge, winding away for twenty miles along the tops of the hills,
which was used principally for bringing wood for the engines and
timbers for propping up the mines.
[Illustration: Flying Cord-Wood]
We were walking along a connecting shed, and happened to look
out a window, when we saw a four-foot stick of cord-wood shoot up
fifty feet from some place behind us, and after sailing over a
wide curve, like a "fly-ball," alight on a great pile of similar
sticks on the lower ground, which was much higher than an
ordinary house, and must have contained thousands of cords.
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Jack. "Wish I could throw a stick
of wood like that fellow."
Another and another shot after the first one in quick
succession. Sometimes there were two almost together, and we
noticed the bigger and heavier the stick the higher and farther
it was shot. We saw some almost a foot in diameter soaring like
straws before the wind.
"What a baseball pitcher that man would make!" went on Jack,
enthusiastically. "Think of his arm! Look at that big one go--it
must weigh two hundred pounds!"
"Let's get out of this shed and investigate the mystery," I
said.
Outside it was all clear. The narrow-gauge wood railroad
ended on the edge of the steep hill overlooking the mills. Down
this was a long wooden chute, or flume, like a big trough, which
for the last thirty or forty feet at its lower end curved upward.
Men were unloading wood from a train at the upper end. Each stick
shot down the flume like lightning, up the short incline at the
end, and soared away like a bird to the pile beyond and below the
shed. A little stream of water trickled constantly down the chute
to keep the friction of the logs from setting it on fire.
"That's the most interesting thing here," said Jack. "I'd
like to send the Blacksmith's Pet down the thing and see what he
would do. I'll wager he'd kick the wood-pile all over the town
after he alighted."
We spent nearly the whole day in wandering about the
stamp-mills. The great steam engines which operated them were
some of the largest we had ever seen.
"And think," observed Jack, "of the fact that all of this
heavy machinery, including the big engines and the locomotives
and cars, and, in fact, everything, was brought overland on
wagons, probably most of it nearly three hundred miles. No wonder
people got to driving such teams as Henderson's."
Toward night we returned to Deadwood by the way of Central
City. Here were more great mines and mills, but they did not Seem
to be so prosperous, and part of the town was deserted, and
consisted of nothing but empty houses. Just as the sun set we
drove in through the Golden Gate, and east anchor at our old camp
near the mill.
The next morning was wintry again, with snowflakes floating
in the air. The ground was frozen, and the wind seemed to come
through the wagon-cover with rather more freedom than we enjoyed.
"It's time we began the return voyage," said Jack. "We're a
long way from home, and we won't get there any too soon if we go
as fast as we can and take the shortest out." So we started that
afternoon.
The shortest cut was to return to Rapid City, and then,
instead of going south into Nebraska, to go straight east,
through the Sioux Indian Reservation, crossing the Missouri at
Pierre, and then on across the settled country of eastern Dakota
to Prairie Flower, over against the Minnesota line.
We followed the same road between Deadwood and Rapid City,
with the exception that we turned out in one place, and went
around by Fort Meade. Here we found a beautiful camping-place the
first night near a little stream and great overhanging rocks, and
not far from Bear Butte. We reached Rapid late the next night,
which was Saturday, and stopped at the old camp near the
mill-race. Here we stayed over Sunday, but Monday noon saw us
under sail again. As we went through the town we stopped at the
freighter's camp, and told 'Gene Brooks good-bye, and then drove
away across the wide rolling plain to the east.
'Gene had warned us that we had a lonesome road before us to
Pierre, one hundred and seventy miles, nearly all of it across
the reservation.
"You'll follow the old freight trail all the way," he said,
"but you may not see three teams the whole distance, because
since the railroad got nearer it isn't used. You'll find an old
stage station about every fifteen or seventeen miles, with
probably one man in charge. You may see a horse-thief or two, or
something of that sort. S'ciety ain't what it ought to be 'round
a reservation gen'rally."
[Illustration: The Deserted Ranch]
Just before the sun sank behind the mountains, which lay like
low black clouds to the west, we came to a little ranch standing
alone on the prairie. The door was open, and it seemed to be
deserted, though there was a rude bed inside. There was a good
well of water, and we decided to camp near it for the night,
especially as the grass was good. There was no other house in
sight. Bedtime arrived, and no one came to the ranch.
"I think I'll just sleep in that house tonight," said Jack,
"and see how it seems. I'll leave the door open, so as not to
have too much luxury at first."
So he went to bed in the shanty, taking Snoozer along, and
leaving the wagon to Ollie and me.
We must have been asleep three or four hours when I was
awakened by the loud barking of a dog. I started up and began
unfastening the front end of the cover. Just then I heard the
pony snort in terror; and then followed a shot from a gun and the
sound of horses galloping away. As I put my head out, Jack
called, excitedly:
"Some men were trying to get the pony. They'd have done it,
too, if Snoozer hadn't barked and scared them away."
I was out of the wagon by this time, and found the pony
trembling at the end of her picket-line as near the wagon as she
could get. Snoozer kept barking as if he couldn't stop.
"Did they shoot at you, Jack?" I asked.
"No, I guess not. I think they just blazed away for fun. They
went off toward the Reservation. Some of Gene's poor s'ciety, I
suppose."
It took half an hour to get the frightened pony and indignant
dog quieted; and perhaps it was longer than that before we again
got to sleep.